TOWARDS A RECOMMENDATION
ON OPEN CULTURE
WHAT IS TAROC?
Towards a Recommendation on Open Culture or TAROC
is a community initiative led by Creative Commons
aiming to support the international community indeveloping a positive, affirmative, and influential
international normative instrument (a“recommendation”) enshrining the values, objectives,and mechanisms for open culture to flourish. Such an
instrument would recognize the importance of global
open sharing of culture as a means to activate andsupport wider cultural and information policy
ambitions. There is currently no formal definition of“open culture” but it may be understood as including
broad and inclusive access to cultural heritage andcontemporary creativity.

WHY TAROC?
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and CulturalOrganization (UNESCO) promotes international
cooperation in the fields of education, science, culture,
as well as communication and information. In the past
few years, UNESCO adopted Recommendations forOpen Educational Resources and Open Science, butthere is currently no international instrument
enshrining open culture.
Better sharing — sharing that is free, ethical,
equitable, inclusive, sustainable, reciprocal, andresponsible — is a key means to enable everyone toenjoy culture. In 2022, the UNESCO Mexico City
MONDIACULT Declaration recognized culture as a global
public good. However, the current policy landscape isunfit to fully realize this ambition:•Citizens all over the world should have the right tomeaningfully access the worldʼs cultural heritage
held in cultural heritage institutions in order tounderstand their present and create their future.
However, they currently face multiple challenges toexperience, interpret, and connect with theirheritage and with each other.

•Cultural heritage institutions, including galleries,libraries, archives and museums (GLAMs) — many ofthem publicly funded — are pivotal spaces wherecitizens can participate in culture and contribute tobuilding resilient knowledge societies. Yet many
GLAMs cannot fulfill their missions in the digitalworld, including sharing collections as part ofefforts to protect, preserve, safeguard, or makethem available to the public for education, researchor enjoyment.

Open culture is a means to overcome thesechallenges. There is an urgent need to realize open
culture for all. Open culture cannot thrive without:•A global policy environment — including laws,standards, norms, frameworks, and practices — thatsupports open culture to the fullest extent possible.

•Empowered people who promote and practice
open culture widely.

•Public, non-profit, and/or collectively governed
open digital infrastructures to support delivery
and enjoyment of culture, including free and open
source software, as well as technical, legal andsocial open infrastructures.

•Sustainable and sufficient funding for GLAMs,creators and open infrastructures.
Roman Garden, 1st Century AD, Anonymous, PDM, The Wellcome Collection

1

WHAT ARE TAROC’S GOALS?
TAROC envisions an international policy framework
and joint work programs that recognize the potentialof open culture as a primary means to attain the goalsof the wider cultural policy agenda, including as ameans to:••

Promote intercultural dialogue and understanding
and promote sharing of reliable information•Dynamize research, education, and learning linked
to cultural heritage and the arts to face the worldʼsbiggest challenges•Enliven arts, culture, and creativity to help us livericher lives•

Promote diversity, inclusivity, and equity to sustain
just, democratic and resilient societies•

Propel cultural heritage institutions into the digitalworld with public investment to ensure theircontinued relevance, mission alignment, andservice orientation

Uphold everyoneʼs fundamental rights under theUniversal Declaration on Human Rights (1948):•

Of freedom of expression and access toinformation — Article 19•

To freely participate in the cultural life of thecommunity and to enjoy the arts — Article 27(1)•Reach the United Nations Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) related to culture,particularly cultural heritage•

Enable everyone to benefit from culture as a global
public good

WHO IS DRIVING TAROC?

••••

•

Foster contemporary creativity and complementand accompany existing UNESCO instruments,
including those protecting the rights of the artist:•

support creators and artists who wish maketheir own works openly accessible•

enable everyone to discover, access, share, use,reuse, and remix cultural heritage in the publicdomain and open contemporary cultural
materials according to artistsʼ wishes and freechoices

Catalyze the preservation, protection,
safeguarding, dissemination, and revitalization ofcultural heritage
Increase accessibility to cultural heritage for people
with disabilities
Empower marginalized groups including young
people, women, and Indigenous peoples in linewith the United Nations Declaration on the Rights ofIndigenous Peoples (2007)
Support novel models for creatorsʼ fair
remuneration and financial sustainability

We are a community of practice made up of volunteers,librarians, copyright experts, anthropologists, artists,archivists, creators, academics, museum curators,
researchers, lawyers, activists, cultural heritageinstitution/GLAM practitioners, and others involved incultural heritage and contemporary creativity. We
believe in the transformative power of open culture.

WHAT DOES CREATIVE COMMONS DO?
CC was founded in 2001 and for over two decades has
been at the vanguard of access to culture. Since thestart of TAROC in 2023, we:
CREATE We co-create resources to raise awareness,share knowledge, and spark new ideas to build new
cultural paradigms, such as:••••Open Culture — Background and Context
Open Culture — A Working Description
Open Culture — Values and Principles
Open Culture — Objectives and Outcomes

EXCHANGE We nurture spaces to hold global and local
conversations to exchange real-life experiences•

Enhance the protection and promotion of thediversity of cultural heritage and culturalexpressions

COLLABORATE We build networks to empower open
culture volunteers and enthusiasts and stimulate
collaboration among like-minded individuals,communities, institutions, organizations, the private
sector, and governments.

•Build knowledge societies and support digital andnew technologies skills learning and support thecultural sector through technological transitions

ARE YOU READY TO JOIN?

•Fight against the illicit trafficking of cultural
heritage

Get in touch with the Creative Commons Open Culture
Team at info@creativecommons.org•Facilitate the return and restitution of cultural
heritage•Ensure a sustainable future for GLAMs and theircollections© Creative Commons 2023
Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)2